Leadership Team
Decades of medical, scientific, and business experience in the drug development and concussion research worlds
Michael Wyand, DVM, PhD
Chief Executive Officer and Director
Dr. Wyand is a biopharmaceutical executive with over twenty-five years experience in managing and building successful product and service oriented life science companies.
An accomplished leader, Dr. Wyand has substantial experience managing R&D and as a corporate officer responsible for communicating corporate strategy and value propositions to company directors, external investors and partners. Dr. Wyand was President/COO of Epirus Biopharmaceuticals after starting as CTO from 2012 to 2016. At Epirus, Dr. Wyand managed a portfolio of biosimilar monoclonal antibodies at both development and commercial stages with global partners in Europe and Asia.
Prior to Epirus Dr. Wyand headed R&D at Percivia, a J&J/DSM joint venture; BioAssets Development, acquired by Cephalon for $120M; and Therion Biologics, a pioneering private-equity-financed, cancer vaccine company. At Therion, Dr. Wyand lead the development of PROSTVAC, a pox-virus based immunotherapeutic vaccine for prostate cancer, licensed by Bristol-Myers Squibb Company for $975M in 2015 and managed the design/build of a cGMP manufacturing plant in Cambridge, MA.
Dr. Wyand started his career at Mason Laboratory a wholly owned subsidiary of Genzyme Transgenics where he was President and CSO and served as Principal Investigator on a $7M NIAID AIDS vaccine contract. Dr. Wyand trained in comparative pathology at Harvard Medical School, received his DVM from Purdue University and his PhD in Pathology from the University of Connecticut. He received a BS in Biology from the University of Connecticut where he graduated with honors as a University Scholar.
Vishal Bansal, MD, FACS
Chief Scientific Officer and Co-founder
Vishal Bansal, M.D. F.A.C.S. is the Chief Scientific Officer and Co-Founder of Oxeia Biopharmaceuticals. Since 2015, Dr. Bansal is a Director of Trauma Surgery at Scripps Mercy Hospital in San Diego. From 2007 until 2015, Dr. Bansal was on faculty at the University California San Diego as an Associate Professor of Surgery.
Dr. Bansal is a clinically active trauma and general surgeon as well as a funded surgical scientist focusing on the physiologic response to brain injury. He has been a principal investigator of three trials in traumatic brain injury. He has nearly 100 peer review publications, book chapters and invited reviews, sits on three national trauma committees, and is a referee for over 25 national and international scientific journals.
Dr. Bansal received his undergraduate degree in music from Kalamazoo College and his medical degree from Wayne State University where he graduated Alpha Omega Alpha with high honors. He completed his general surgery internship and residency at The University of Pittsburgh and his fellowship in surgical critical care at University of California San Diego.
Lindsey McClelland
VP of Operations
Lindsey McClelland was named Vice President of Operations at Oxeia in November 2021. Ms. McClelland has nearly 10 years of experience in the pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical industry. She most recently held the position of Director Program Management at Oxeia where she was responsible for managing strategic planning, program management and clinical trial functions. Earlier in her career, she was Director of Program Management for the Boston-based OneBiopharma, Inc. and held administrative roles at EPIRUS Biopharmaceuticals and Vertex Pharmaceuticals. As Vice President of Operations, Ms. McClelland will be responsible for strategic oversight of the program management and operational functions at Oxeia.
Ms. McClelland has a B.A. in History from Boston College.
Kartik Shah
Director and Co-founder
Kartik Shah is a member of the Board of Directors and Co-founder of Oxeia Biopharmaceuticals, Inc. He served as the company's Chief Business Officer and Chief Financial Officer until 2019. Mr. Shah identified the lead asset and has led Oxeia's strategy, licensing, planning and intellectual property activities since inception.
Prior to founding Oxeia, Mr. Shah was VP of Business Development at Cynvenio Biosystems, a molecular diagnostics startup, where he was responsible for developing research partnerships with big pharma and major cancer centers. Prior to Cynvenio, Mr. Shah was a Director and General Manager at Wireless Generation, a SaaS product and consulting business in K-12 education. His clients included the US Department of Education, New York City Public Schools and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Earlier in his career, Mr. Shah was a Manager in the Strategy and Corporate Development team at Amgen and a consultant with Oliver, Wyman and Company. He also served as the Chairman of the Board of Trustees for GlobalXFunds from 2008-2018, overseeing 40+ publicly traded ETFs with $10 BN under management.
Mr. Shah holds a BSE in Bioengineering and an MS in Biotechnology from the University of Pennsylvania, and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Amit Munshi
Co-founder
Amit Munshi is an experienced pharmaceutical executive and Co-founder of Oxeia Biopharmaceuticals, Inc. Mr. Munshi is the Chief Executive Officer of ReNAgade Therapeutics, Inc. Mr. Munshi was most recently President and CEO of Arena Pharmaceuticals Inc. (Nasdaq:ARNA) where he built the company from a $300M market cap into a late clinical-stage company with 37 programs, 4 drugs, and 11 indications before their $6.7B acquisition by Pfizer.
Prior to Arena, Mr. Munshi served as President and Chief Executive Officer and a director of Epirus Biopharmaceuticals, Inc. from May 2012 to May 2016. Prior to Epirus, Mr. Munshi served as Chief Executive Officer of Percivia LLC, a biotechnology company, from 2011 to 2012, was a co-founder and served as Chief Business Officer of Kythera Biopharmaceuticals, Inc., from 2005 to 2010, and held multiple leadership positions at Amgen Inc. from 1997 to 2005, including General Manager, Nephrology Europe.
Mr. Munshi holds a B.S. in Economics and a B.A. in History from the University of California, Riverside, and an M.B.A. from the Peter F. Drucker Graduate School of Management at Claremont Graduate University.
Mr. Munshi has more than 25 years of global biopharmaceutical industry experience in executive management, business development, product development and portfolio management. Mr. Munshi also serves on the board of Cytrellis Biosystems, Inc., a privately held company.
Ted Raad
Director
Ted Raad joined Oxeia Biopharmaceuticals Board of Directors in 2021. He has extensive experience building and leading great organizations in both specialty healthcare service and pharmaceutical companies.
Mr. Raad is the CEO and Board Director at Pulmatrix, a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company developing innovative inhaled therapies to address serious pulmonary and non-pulmonary disease using its patented iSPERSE™ technology. Prior to his appointment as CEO, he served as PULMATRiX’s Chief Business Officer and led commercial and business development efforts. He has 20 years of commercial healthcare and life science leadership experience and most recently served as Chief Commercial Officer at Option Care, where he helped separate the specialty home infusion business unit from Walgreens to create the nation’s largest independent home infusion provider. Prior to that, he was a business unit head at Sunovion with overall responsibility for CNS and respiratory products, including assets in asthma and COPD. During his time at Sunovion, Mr. Raad led multiple products through clinical development to commercialization and implemented new strategic alliances in the US and Japan. Earlier in his career, he also gained direct launch experience with Sporanox®, Janssen’s oral itraconazole product to treat fungal infections, and brings that experience to the PULMATRiX PUR1900 program. Mr. Raad holds a BS in Business Administration from University of Colorado at Boulder and an MBA from Thunderbird Global School of Global Management.
Alex Smith
Director
Alex Smith joined the Board of Directors of Oxeia Biopharmaceuticals in 2021.
Mr. Smith’s 16-year NFL career began as the No. 1 overall draft pick of the San Francisco 49ers in 2005. The California-native passed for more than 35,000 yards, threw nearly 200 touchdowns and appeared in more than 175 games, including five seasons with Kansas City (2013-17) and three with Washington (2018-20) following eight with the 49ers (2005-12). He earned Pro Bowl honors in 2013, ’16 and ’17.
Mr. Smith gained respect from fans near and far as the NFL world collectively followed his comeback – regarded as one of the most historic moments in football history – from a severely broken leg, sustained in the 2018 season. His story about the injury was documented in a special edition of ESPN’s E60, Project 11 in May 2020, including his battles with post-operative infection, how doctors and Smith’s family had to make life-changing decisions, and his intense recovery and rehabilitation.
Smith returned to the playing field and went on to appear in eight games in 2020 and start six games earning a 5-1 record prior to retiring in April 2021. His perseverance and success earned him the NFL Comeback Player of the Year honor.
Since retiring from football, Smith joined ESPN on multiple shows and in various roles, mainly surrounding NFL programming, including SportsCenter. Smith has a role on Monday Night Countdown on select weeks and adds contributions to Sunday NFL Countdown from time-to-time. The widely-respected veteran will also be part of ESPN’s coverage of key tent pole events, such as Super Bowl LVI and the 2022 NFL Draft.
Off the field, Smith is a dedicated husband, father and philanthropist as he founded The Alex Smith Foundation, which provides foster teens with the tools and resources needed to transition to successful adulthood.
“Although there are medications that can treat specific symptoms of concussions such as depression or headaches, to date there are no drugs that treat the injury to the brain or the ongoing and often debilitating symptoms that many experience following their injury. OXE-103 holds tremendous potential to address the underlying pathology of concussion.”
Mark Iwicki
Chairman and CEO of Kala Pharmaceuticals and
Advisor of Oxeia Biopharmaceuticals